In the Middle Ages, Venice feared the Ottoman Empire, but political and
economic competition also came from other quarters, especially the city-state of
Ragusa, modern Dubrovnik. Ragusa had its own fleet of merchantmen and competed
vigorously with Venice. In fact, shipping was the major industry until the
1950s, when tourism took over. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the
Turks, the Ragusans had the foresight to understand that their days were
numbered if they didn't establish good relations with the Ottoman Empire, which
they promptly did. By 1465, Turkish troops had taken Bosnia and Herzegovina and
were at Ragusa's doorstep. Ragusa played its neutrality brilliantly, as a
protege of the Pope and a vassal to the sultan, in a hostile Mediterranean where
its ships could sail unharmed. By the sixteenth century, Ragusan influence on
Mediterranean trade was nothing short of amazing, helped by the fact that it had
trading colonies throughout the Balkans linked by a network of roads to Sarajevo
and Skopje, the gateway to the East.

Ragusa was built on extremely poor and barren land that yielded no food.
Food, and especially cereals, had to be imported and so Ragusa maintained good
relations with southern Italy, Sicily, and, for that matter, anyone supplying
food. Wheat was the primary grain.

The organization of food supply in Ragusa was such that good relations
were maintained not only with suppliers but also with the Ottoman Turks, who
controlled so many trading routes. Cereal traders and shipowners were strictly
controlled by the governing council of the Ragusan Republic and notified a year
ahead of time when their turn would come to carry grains to the city.

The purpose of these food regulations is evident when we are told that
Ragusa experienced only eight famines in five hundred years, a very
un-Mediterranean story. Ragusa had a vast cereal warehousing system. It was
supplemented in the beginning of the fifteenth century with the digging of huge
pits with a twelve hundred ton capacity for storing grain. These pits grew in
size, and eventually became the enormous edifice called Rupe even today. Rupe
means "holes" and above these fifteen holes cut into the rock is a huge three
story building, part of the Municipal Museum.

Through the efforts of the Ragusan government, the city, which had a
population of 6,000 in the late fifteenth century, always had a sufficient
supply of fresh vegetables, especially cabbage and broccoli, which are specialties of
the cuisine of Dubrovnik to this day.